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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29594145">How to Ghost a Guy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheeryos/pseuds/cheeryos'>cheeryos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>popular mechanics for lovers [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Meet-Cute, Meet-Ugly, Ronan Lynch &amp; Blue Sargent Friendship, the brOTP, wrong number AU but make it deliberate</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:29:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,467</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29594145</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheeryos/pseuds/cheeryos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Blue Sargent was not psychic.  She could not read crystal balls or tarot cards, and she found tea leaves as useless for prognostication as they were for drinking. So when she asked her scary roommate to screen her calls after bad nights out, there were several things she didn’t foresee.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch &amp; Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish (background)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>popular mechanics for lovers [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174199</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>193</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>How to Ghost a Guy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I recommend you read <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789457">how to be an ally</a> first for the full context, but this generally stands alone.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Blue Sargent was not psychic.  She could not read crystal balls or tarot cards, and she found tea leaves as useless for prognostication as they were for drinking. So when she asked her scary roommate to screen her calls after bad nights out, there were several things she didn’t foresee.</p><p>The first was that he would take to the scheme with such gusto. The whole ridiculous She-Died-Years-Ago-And-You-Actually-Met-Her-Ghost-Last-Night thing was entirely his idea. She had only suggested that if he <em>did</em> happen to answer his phone, he should shut down the caller in his most terrifying pissed off Lynch voice. His response—offended, like how <em>dare</em> she question his commitment—was that he wasn’t a half-asser. (She later found him practicing overdramatic horror movie lines in the mirror.)</p><p>The second thing she didn’t predict was that he would steal a potential boyfriend right out from under her nose. That was extremely uncool. Especially since he and Adam had turned out to be a truly disgusting pair when they were together. And they were suddenly always together.</p><p>It’s not that she was jealous because he was dating Adam and she wasn’t—after a few of weeks of Adam hanging around their apartment, Blue was pretty sure that they wouldn’t have worked out anyways. That wasn’t to say she didn’t like him. She did, absolutely. The two of them had become friends, now that the initial awkwardness had worn off.</p><p>It was just—it seemed like every time she turned around nowadays, she caught an accidental glimpse of a tongue being stuck down a throat, or a hand wandering up under a shirt, or an ass cheek being grabbed. If she was being honest with herself, far more painful were the accidental glimpses of soft words whispered in ears, gentle smiles, longing glances, and romantic caressing of (face) cheeks.</p><p>She didn’t begrudge Ronan his happiness. Of course not. She wasn’t a bad person. She wasn’t even (very) bitter about the manner in which he found it. She was only annoyed that the universe hadn’t seen fit to give her the same. Especially after she had been so goddamn gracious and forgiving about the situation. Wasn’t there such a thing as karma?</p><p>Okay, maybe she was a little annoyed at Ronan’s happiness. So sue her.</p><p> </p><p>-------</p><p> </p><p>After a particularly upsetting morning where Blue walked in on Ronan and Adam in various states of undress no less than three times in three separate parts of their (<em>her</em>!) apartment, she snatched up her laptop and fled to Green Light Café.</p><p>The coffeeshop-slash-hipster-bar had begun its life as a quiet, serene place to hang out, with dark oak on the walls and warm lighting strung up everywhere and books lining the shelves like an ancient cozy library. Then the hordes of quirky 20-somethings had discovered it, and it was now no longer a safe haven. Every day, without fail, they’d swarm in for loud and obnoxious latte lunches, then louder and obnoxious-er happy hours the second the menu turned from cappuccinos to cocktails.</p><p>Blue knew, objectively, that she was being unfair. After all, she was also a quirky 20-something who had discovered the place. And she tried not to be judgmental, really. It was just—the people around here were so <em>boring</em>. All of them the same, with the same questions, and the same hairstyles, and the same terrible opinions on the same terrible movies.</p><p>On the other hand, if she had any hope of expanding her social circle beyond Ronan Lynch, perennial human-repellent, she might need to actually…try meeting new people.</p><p>Truly a nightmare. People sucked.</p><p>Especially on this particular day, where person after person approached her table, only to ask to use the wall plug nearby. How was she expected to get anything done with these constant interruptions? And barring productivity, how was she expected to make any meaningful conversations when they all began with “<em>hey, are you using that</em>?”</p><p>Honestly. What was she meant to do with that?</p><p> </p><p>“Pardon me,” a voice dripping with honeyed geniality once again cut through her concentration like a broadsword.</p><p>She looked up, frustrated, to see an absurdly good-looking young man hovering over her. He had beautiful hair, thick and dark and shiny and curling just-so, as if a set of beautiful rich fingers had just been carelessly run through it.  He was also wearing incredibly pink shorts and an incredibly ugly polo shirt with a small whale on the breast.</p><p>“I can’t help but notice you’ve seen a lot of action.”</p><p>“<em>Excuse me</em>?” She couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that declaration. She just gaped at him.</p><p>“Your socket, I mean.” This addition was, somehow, not better.</p><p>She glared coldly. Who the fuck <em>was</em> this guy? Had he learned pick-up lines by watching 1960’s era James Bond movies?</p><p>“Erm. Could I, you know…” he gestured weakly at the open seat near the available wall socket. The bottom space was taken by her laptop plug but the top was free. She grimaced behind closed lips.</p><p>“No, you may not. Not after you just called me a slut.”</p><p>“I called you a—what? I didn’t!”</p><p>“Twice.”</p><p>“I—No, that is not what I said. That is <em>not</em> how I meant it.”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter how you meant it. It was rude as hell.”</p><p>“I could really use the charge. If you could just please see it from my perspective—”</p><p>She ignored him to rummage in her bag for her phone charger. She shoved it into the socket and looked defiantly back.</p><p>“In use. Sorry.”</p><p>For a split second he looked taken aback, then he smiled as if to say <em>point conceded. </em>As if he was part of a funny joke instead of the butt of one.</p><p>“I find you intriguing,” he said.</p><p>“Well, I find you exhaustingly condescending,” she bit back.</p><p>Finally, at that, he seemed to get the hint. He slunk away. Well, no, that wasn’t true. Blue <em>wished</em> she had the ability to make polished and confident men slink away, tails between their legs. Instead, he had nodded at her with a lazy, apologetic wave and strode away, head high and shoulders back, like it would never even have occurred to him to slink.</p><p>Ugh. Good riddance.</p><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, her banishing powers managed to be as nonexistent as her psychic ones. After picking up his drink from the counter, the pretty young man came back to claim the table next to her. He shuffled around to the wall plug behind her and had the audacity to unplug her phone charger and replace it with his own cord.</p><p>She bristled. She hadn’t actually been using the charger, but still. She had claimed it! The sheer <em>entitlement</em> of these rich assholes.</p><p>He returned to his seat and smiled agreeably at her.</p><p>“I apologize for what I said to you earlier. My intentions were noble, but I now realize that my words may have been misconstrued and I’m truly sorry if you took any inadvertent offense.”</p><p>God. Who <em>talked</em> like that?</p><p>“So. Truce? I hope we can be friends.”</p><p>He smiled pleasantly again, and she considered sticking the tines of her suddenly free plug into his eye. It was probably not an impulse she should indulge. She did actually want to show her face in here again, so making a scene was not the best idea.</p><p>Anyways, she was a mature adult. She could swallow her annoyance and make nice with this guy. So instead, she returned his smile with a faint one of her own. It might have been more of a grimace, actually, but at least it wasn’t a shout.</p><p>After a half hour, she was forced to reconsider. She definitely should have attacked him with the plug when she had the chance. He had taken her silence as a tacit agreement to<em>—chat</em>.</p><p>Why wouldn’t he just leave her in peace? No amount of handsomeness was worth this.</p><p>When he found out her name, he chatted for a while about unusual versus classic names. He was a big fan of <em>Jane</em>, apparently. Maybe he only dated Janes. That seemed like the sort of thing a rich person would have a very specific bizarre principle about. He chatted about the different types of laptops they were both using. He chatted about the coffee they were drinking, going on a ten minute spiel about Ethiopian versus Honduran beans, and what you could do with the coffee fruit once the beans were used. He then moved on to local produce, for some ungodly reason. He chatted about the goddamn <em>weather</em>.</p><p>Blue was exhausted by the inanity. She was so mentally exhausted that she barely even noticed when he grabbed her phone off the table and punched in his number. He—<em>put his own number in her phone</em>. <em>And then</em> <em>called himself with it so he would have her number!</em> The utter, brazen, audacity of this boring asshole!</p><p>As soon as she escaped, she edited the contact from <em>Gansey</em> (what kind of a weird rich person name was that? Who the fuck was <em>he</em> to say that <em>her</em> name was unusual?) to: <em>DO NOT ANSWER / LYNCH PICK UP</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When Blue returned to the apartment, she found that Adam still hadn’t left. He was lazily tangled around Ronan on the couch, the two of them watching some movie with crashing sound effects three times as loud as the dialogue. <em>God</em>, didn’t he have his own home?</p><p>Immediately she felt bad about her bitchiness, even if it was only in her head. She was turning into a bitter old maid. She would be single and salty about it forever.</p><p>“Hey Blue, I’m going trailblazing next Saturday. Wanna come with?” Adam asked, sitting up and shoving at Ronan to make room for her on the couch.</p><p>Now she felt even worse. She vowed to have more charitable thoughts from now on as she sat down and stole a handful of their popcorn.</p><p>“Ronan, are you going too?”</p><p>He snorted derisively. Adam rolled his eyes. “No, he has a date with his other boyfriend.”</p><p>“God, like you want to hang out and <em>brunch</em> with a family of rich Republicans. I already begged you to come along and save me, and you refused.”</p><p>“I have to work!” Adam protested, grinning conspiratorially at Blue. “I have a very important trail to mark. What do you say, up for a hike?”</p><p>She smiled back at him and nodded.</p><p>“Where were you anyways? Green Light?” Ronan asked. She nodded again.</p><p>“God, you would never believe the day I had! This smarmy rich douchebag sat down next to me and bored me to tears about coffee beans and local organic cucumbers. And <em>then</em> he put his number in <em>my</em> phone and rang himself, so I couldn’t even give him the fake number. Of course he didn’t even ask before taking my phone out of my hands. Rich people are so fucking entitled. They think the sun shines out of their assholes and we should all be falling over ourselves to be so <em>grateful</em> that they’re giving us the time of day. They all need to be taught a lesson. Ugh!”</p><p>She punctuated her rant by throwing a pillow at Ronan, which hit him in the face.</p><p>“Hey! Is a pillow in my face my lesson?”</p><p>She scoffed. “You don’t count. It’s not the money that makes you an asshole.”</p><p>Adam snorted. Ronan glared at them both. “I can’t decide if that’s a compliment or not.”</p><p>“Not,” Blue and Adam chimed together.</p><p> </p><p>-------</p><p> </p><p>The next day, Blue was fixing herself a sandwich when her phone started to ring.</p><p>
  
</p><p><em>Call from: DO NOT ANSWER / LYNCH PICK UP</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“Shit. <em>Shit</em>! Ronan, please answer this, I can’t talk to this guy again!” She shoved her phone into his hands.</p><p>He raised an eyebrow, but took the phone and pressed answer.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>“You want to speak to <em>Blue? Blue Sargent</em>??” Ronan said in his now-familiar Shocked with a capital S voice. He bared his teeth at Blue. “But she’s dead! She died fif—” he was cut off abruptly by the other voice, inaudible to Blue but for the timbre.</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Wait—” he started, then was cut off again.</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>“…yes?”</p><p>
  
</p><p>“No, wait, <em>what</em>? How did you—?” Ronan had started laughing. What the hell was going on?</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>“No, of course not really. Chill out. That was a joke.” His brows had drawn in slightly, but his voice had relaxed into something far more comfortable.</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Yeah, it’s hers. She’s my roommate,” he said in this new voice. Again, what the hell? How had he dropped the act so completely already?</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t believe you guys had never met before,” Ronan continued, looking at her curiously. The voice on the end said something that ended on an uptick, like a question.</p><p> </p><p>“Yep, that’s the one,” Ronan answered, then chuckled at the other end’s answer.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah well, you should hear what I call you in front of other people. How’d you get her number, anyways?”</p><p> </p><p>“I hadn’t noticed,” Ronan said dryly. Blue narrowed her eyes at him. She was dying to know what they were talking about. This was torture.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s…not here at the moment,” he said slowly as Blue frantically waved her arms in what she hoped he would recognize as the universal gesture of <em>DON’T YOU DARE GIVE THAT TO ME.</em></p><p> </p><p>“Why don’t I have her call you back when she can?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh huh.”</p><p> </p><p>“God, <em>fine</em>,” he ended exasperatedly, but unconvincingly. Blue saw the smile at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll see you then.”</p><p> </p><p>When he had hung up, Ronan turned accusing eyes on her. Hold up. She was pretty sure should be the one accusing him, not the other way around.</p><p> </p><p>“What the fuck?” she asked.</p><p>“I should be asking <em>you</em> what the fuck. That’s my best friend you just tried to ghost.”</p><p> </p><p>Oh.</p><p>Oh shit.</p><p>Also—<em>what</em>?</p><p>She had a whole new slew of <em>what the fuck?</em>s running through her brain now.</p><p>How in the hell was <em>Ronan Lynch</em> best friends with WASPy McDouchebag?</p><p> </p><p>“Listen,” he started. “Dick’s a dumbass sometimes, but he’s not a dick. He’s actually very kind, and very sincere, and he’d never deliberately do anything to hurt someone. It wouldn’t even cross his mind to not respect boundaries. Like, I’m fine with you not wanting to date him, but you should at least be straight with him. These phone-screening privileges are for actual assholes, not avoiding awkward conversations or ghosting perfectly nice guys.”</p><p>Blue suddenly felt a little ashamed. Okay, so she had sort of been taking advantage of the situation. And for someone who prided herself on being forthright, she was starting to feel like a big fat hypocrite. She didn’t appreciate Ronan pointing it out to her though.</p><p>She sighed and held out her hand. “Give me the phone.”</p><p>“Be nice,” Ronan warned. “He seems confident but he’s a sensitive idiot underneath and he’ll definitely take it personally. He also means a lot to me. And I will murder you in your sleep if you tell him I said that.”</p><p>She began to dial, then hesitated.</p><p>She was still slightly perplexed at the whole situation. If Ronan liked him—Ronan-who-hated-everyone-in-the-world-Lynch liked him—then could he really be as bad as her memory suggested? More pressingly, would shutting him down so thoroughly make their rooming situation unbearably awkward if and when he ever came over?</p><p>She canceled the call and threw her phone down before she could change her mind.</p><p>“Why don’t you invite him over to hang out? As, like, a whole group?”</p><p>“Why, so you can reject him with an audience? No fucking way.”</p><p>“No, God, do you think I’m that much of a bitch? I just meant that A, I’d probably be meeting him soon anyways if you guys are that close and B, maybe if he isn’t trying so hard to impress me, he won’t be so insufferable.”</p><p>“And then C, you don’t have to make this awkward phone call,” Ronan tacked on dryly.  Blue stuck her tongue out at him. He wasn’t wrong.</p><p>“No, C, I am fascinated by what you see in him. He seemed completely blank to me. Like if you scratched off the douchey exterior you’d just find, like, a hole underneath.”</p><p>She quailed under the look Ronan gave her.</p><p>“God. Fine. I’ll be nice.”</p><p>He gave her another deeply suspicious look, and then went to call Gansey back from his own phone.</p><p> </p><p>-------</p><p> </p><p>Several days later, Blue and Ronan hosted the tiniest party on earth, with just Adam and Gansey as the invitees.</p><p>Blue wasn’t sure if Ronan had said anything to Gansey about the entire debacle, and her severe disinterest, but the guy who showed up at their place was a completely different person. He was still dressed abominably, and he had brought a six-pack of fancy beer that was way too bitter to justify the price, but he had dropped the condescending pleasantries and actually sounded like a halfway-normal human being.</p><p>Mostly.</p><p>There were still a few tangents-that-were-nearly-rants about highly specific subjects, but coupled with a newfound gleam in the eye, they were rendered eccentric rather than alienating. Ronan loudly making fun of him helped. Gansey reacting fondly to Ronan’s mocking helped even more. She suddenly saw how this worked—and it was like an abrupt glimpse into a new world. A potential future world, even. <em>Maybe you should take another whack at those tea leaves, Sargent,</em> she told herself.</p><p> </p><p>Later in the evening, he dropped down next to her on the couch while Adam and Ronan were off doing…God knows what. She was absolutely not going to investigate to find out. She’d been burned too many times before.</p><p>“I have a confession to make,” Gansey leaned over to speak the words like a secret. He was drunk. It lowered his defenses even further, warming his brown eyes and tinging his mouth with an ever-present smile.</p><p>He had a very nice mouth.</p><p>“…what.”</p><p>“I asked Ronan for advice on how to get you to like me.”</p><p>Blue scoffed. “I barely even like <em>him</em>. How on earth would he know?”</p><p>The corners of Gansey’s very nice lips curled into a full-blown smile. “You liar. You two are perfect for each other. If you weren’t…you know. And he wasn’t…also. You know.”</p><p>“Yes, ours is a tragic love story, doomed from the start,” she laughed, despite herself. “Fine. So, what did he say? What was his grand, helpful advice?”</p><p>“He said to do the opposite of whatever stupid slick-Dick-Gansey performance I must have done when we met.”</p><p>Blue considered. “<em>Just be yourself? </em>That’s his advice? What a concept. No one’s ever thought of that before.” She considered further. “Unless that’s the real you and this is the fake one.”</p><p>“No, no, he’s right.” This declaration was accompanied by another wave of an imperious hand. Drunk, it was far more toothless than it had been in the café. He continued, “Lynch hates Politician Gansey almost as much as you.”</p><p>“So why do you do it, then?”</p><p>He shrugged.</p><p>“Makes interacting with the rest of the world easier. That way no one has to deal with the mess. People like simple.”</p><p>“But it’s not real. You can’t expect to have any meaningful relationships built on shallow bullshit.”</p><p>He shot her a look of exaggerated surprise. “Hey, you think that might be why I’m single?”</p><p>“Nah. It’s your hideous face. Can barely stand to look at you.”</p><p>“I’m wounded, Jane.”</p><p>“…Did you forget my name already?”</p><p>He smiled, as if to say, <em>point won</em>. As if she was the butt of the joke, now—but it was a joke they had shared before. She felt her cheeks warming. She didn’t hate it.</p><p>“Tell me something true,” she said suddenly.</p><p>“Okay. Did you know that driving little cars is a stress-relieving activity for rats?”</p><p>Blue pursed her lips. “You shouldn’t call Ronan a rat.”</p><p>Gansey looked perplexed for a second, and then let out a burst of delighted laughter.</p><p>“I’m serious. They did experiments in Richmond. They have videos of the little rat cars zipping around and everything. It’s criminally adorable.”</p><p>“Okay.” Blue could feel herself wanting to laugh too. “I meant something true about yourself, but this also seems intriguing. I’ll allow it.”</p><p>“Something true about me…hmm. I guess I’m delighted by the idea of tiny animals driving cars.”</p><p>This was uncomfortably charming to Blue, as well. She sighed. Might as well get it over with.</p><p>“Do you want to go on a date with me?”</p><p>He smiled brilliantly at her, his face filled with easy and uncomplicated happiness, as if she had just handed him a puppy. Or a rat driving a tiny car. She felt warm down to her toes.</p><p>“Oh, Jane. I thought you’d never ask.”</p><p> </p>
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